Despite the fact that I have some critical views about Islam myself, I continue to hold that the Islamophobes of the world are insane. They make no sense at all. Another commenter noted recently that the Hindutvadis of India (really nearly all middle to upper class high caste Hindus) have a hatred of Islam that makes no sense whatsoever and is completely irrational. I would agree with that. The Hindutvadi commenters on this blog have a truly irrational hatred of Islam.
To some extent it is true that Islam is a menace, and it is a violent religion, but it’s mostly a problem in the various sandboxes that are ruled by Islam. In other words, Islam is mostly a problem for Muslims and not for the rest of us. To the extent that it is a problem for the rest of is is mostly due to the fact that we can’t seem to stop attacking and killing Muslims. As long as we do that, they will wage defense or revenge based Islam on us.
The truth is that that most Islamophobes are motivated by reaction. There are very few progressive Islam-haters (there are some in Afghanistan and Iran) because Islamophobia is not a progressive value.
Almost all Islamophobes in the West are motivated by political reaction. In other words, they are beasts themselves – they are the very beasts that they accuse the Muslims of being. In Europe, Islamophobes are associated with the most reactionary elements of Europe – European and even White nationalists. They are also associated with all of the fascist and quasi-fascist parties in Europe.
They are strongly aligned with Zionism, a vile imperialist and settler-colonial fascist project that occupies and conquers Arab lands and has expansionist aims on the rest of it.They are politically reactionary, and many of them have begun to rail against socialism and the welfare state and have started to rail for radical neoliberal economics. In the UK, they are responsible for Crusade-like invasions of Muslim lands in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan.
In Russia it is much the same, except the Islam-haters are even worse – more racist, more fascist and much more violent. They are associated with a violent project to deny the majority-Muslim lands in the Caucasus their right to self-determination, which is their inherent right after all. Instead, like Crusaders of recent European colonizers, the Russians have made much of the Caucasus into colonies. In the meantime, they committed genocide against the Muslims of Chechnya.
In Israel, the Islamophobes are associated with the most fascist, backwards, conquering and expansionist elements of the Jews. I should note that these same elements hate Christians and non-Jews about as much as they hate Islam. These are the monsters of the Jewish people, as wicked as they accuse the Muslims of being. This group is also politically reactionary, and is responsible for imposing radical neoliberalism on Israel which has resulted in many social problems, including widespread homelessness.
In Lebanon, the Muslim haters are associated with the Maronite Christian Falangist movement, a true fascist movement that has the distinction of being the first movement to bring European style fascism (like the Nazis) to Lebanon. The founders of this movement worshiped Hitler. This is a true monstrosity, a blood and soil fascist movement that has deep roots in Maronite society. In addition, this group is politically reactionary, supporting the closest thing to radical neoliberalism anywhere in the Arab World.
In India, the Muslim haters are the most poisonous, backwards, fascistic and casteist elements of Indian society, strongly associated with the high caste Hindu elite. There is a lot of evidence that the hatred of Islam by Hindutvadis is because the Muslims humiliated the high castes and removed them from their position of privilege in Hindu society. This is an extremely fascist movement whose leaders also worshiped Hitler. They are responsible for a genocide against Muslims in Gujarat in which 2,500 Muslims were slaughtered with state support.
This movement is associated also with radical neoliberal economics and hatred for socialism and the poor and lower castes of India. It is an elite movement designed to deepen poverty in India, enrich the high castes and restore the high castes to their position of privilege which they felt was denied them in a movement since Independence. They represent the most primitive and barbaric elements of Hindu culture, which is backwards, cruel, amoral and parasitic anyway. These are the monsters of India and the monsters of the world, a danger to the SubCon and to the rest of us as they spread out like a plague around the globe. They are every bit as vicious and monstrous as the Muslims they hate so much.
The bottom line is that Islamophobes are simply bad people.
Everywhere it exists on Earth, it is associated with idiotic and barbaric religious fundamentalism, either Jewish, Christian or Hindu. It is generally associated with the most reactionary elements in every society, and it usually wishes to impose radical rightwing economics on society in the form of neoliberalism.
This is an elite project designed to enrich the top 20% of society while impoverishing when it is not starving or killing off the bottom 80%. It has been responsible for many millions of deaths in the last few decades, mostly via denial of medical care through mandated state kickbacks. In some societies like Israel, Europe and Russia, it is associated with racism in the form of ethnic nationalism – Jewish nationalism in Israel and White nationalism in Europe and Russia.
If Islamophobes were decent people themselves then we might have a movement to counterpoise the backwards and violent nature of Islam. Instead they are just as bad as the Muslims and in fact in many cases, they are probably even worse. They vastly exaggerate and lie about Muslims and Islam, and ridiculous overplay the dangers associated with this religion, which is mostly a danger to its own adherents anyway.
